School News

After failed bond, students, residents discuss plans for outdated Lynbrook High School

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The Lynbrook High School cafeteria was packed to near capacity on April 19 for a Board of Education meeting, with residents and students having come to discuss last month’s defeated $45 million bond referendum, and what the rejection means for the effort to improve the high school’s outdated facilities.

In the month since the bond’s defeat, the decision to revisit the project had been hotly debated on social media, and this was the first time the school board had met for a public discussion.

Resident Sean Murray presented the Board of Education with a petition with about 500 signatures, requesting that the administration offer another, more effectively promoted plan within 18 months. As he addressed the trustees, dozens of residents stood with him to display their support.

The failed bond would have funded the construction of a 646-seat performing arts center as well as a renovated lab for science and engineering programs, and would have reorganized the high school to consolidate curriculum, similar to a college campus. The measure would have cost homeowners $357 per year over the bond’s 20-year lifespan.

Murray noted that the referendum had been falsely perceived as benefiting only art and science students, which he believed led many to vote against it. He also stressed that the low voter turnout did not reflect the entire community.

“While there’s no way for us to predict what a higher turnout would’ve meant — more support or more opposition,” Murray said, “at least we would’ve been better able to trust the results for a true representation of the community’s opinion.”

Several other speakers, including five students, said the bond could have been better showcased. Brandon Crofts, a Lynbrook High student, shared with trustees what he had learned in his government class about surveying public opinion. He and others alluded to a concerted effort to sway voters in certain areas of the community to reject the plan.

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